1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus that performs a plurality of shooting operations to acquire a plurality of pieces of image data to be used for image composition, and a method for controlling the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Imaging apparatuses such as a digital camera may perform a shooting operation with high sensitivity to suppress camera shakes when photographing a nightscape in a handheld manner. The imaging apparatuses have conventionally had a problem of increased noise in such high-sensitivity shooting operations. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-124292 discusses a technique for combining image data acquired by performing a shooting operation with low sensitivity while causing a flash to emit light and image data acquired by performing a shooting operation with high sensitivity without causing the flash to emit light. The technique includes determining a combining ratio pixel by pixel. The greater brightness value a pixel of image data acquired by performing a shooting operation while causing the flash to emit light has, the higher the ratio of the image data acquired by performing the shooting operation while causing the flash to emit light is made.
According to the technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-124292, an exposure condition for performing a shooting operation while causing the flash to emit light and an exposure condition for performing a shooting operation without causing the flash to emit light are not appropriately set so that a favorable composite image can be obtained.